[1]} compared an early-time spectrum and the light curve of
SN 2010lp with their simulation of a violent merger of two CO white dwarfs of
mass 0.90 and 0.76 \(\textrm {M}_{\odot }\) , and showed good agreement, which supports the merger
scenario for this peculiar SN Ia. In this particular type of merger,
[1]} found that the centre of the ejecta are dominated by unburned
oxygen coming from the disrupted secondary. This is at least one step towards
what is observed in SN 2010lp, but the central oxygen has an almost spherically
symmetric distribution, which is unlikely to produce two distinct components of
the [O i] emission in the nebular phase. The analysis of [1]} did
not extend to the nebular epoch. Further study is therefore warranted. A merger
scenario had been proposed for SN 1991bg itself [4]}, [5]},
suggesting that the merger channel represents a significant contribution to
low-luminosity SNe Ia.
